BITM Business Research Methods

Meaning of research. Scientific research-features, Types of research-basic research and applied research. The scientific research process. Paradigm shifts-Positivism vs. interpretivism philosophies. Management research-concept, nature, and value in business decision making. applying scientific thinking to management/business problems. Ethical issues in business research.

Concept, purposes and steps in literature survey. Literature search through the internet. Theoretical framework. Research problem. Statement of research objectives. Formulation of research hypothesis. Approaches-deduction and induction.

Concept of research design. Quantitative research designs -descriptive, correlational, causal-comparative, and experimental. Qualitative research - case study, ethnography and grounded theory.

Variables (independent, dependent and moderating) and measurement scale (nominal, ordinal, interval, ratio). Nature of measurement. Scale construction for attitude measurement. Scales commonly used in business research (rank order rating scale, semantic differential scale, likert scale). Validity and reliability of measurement. Sources of measurement problems. Sampling process. Types of sampling -probability sampling (simple random, systematic, stratified and cluster) and non-probability sampling (convenience, judgmental and quota). Sampling and non-sampling errors. Determination of sample size.

Types of data and their sources-secondary data, advantages and disadvantages of using secondary data. Primary data-sources and methods. Questionnaires-design, components and principles of questionnaire writing. Research interviews- face-to-face and telephone interviews, computer assisted interviewing. Observation-concept and methods. Presenting data in tables, diagrams and graphs, Quantitative data analysis methods - descriptive and inferential statistics. Methods of collecting qualitative data. Qualitative data analysis methods - content analysis, narrative analysis, discourse analysis, grounded theory analysis. Chi-square test for goodness of fit and independence of attributes with examples.

Topic selection. Research proposal – purpose, types and structure. Writing research reports -the reporting process, procedure for writing, and style of writing. Typing and layout of the research report. Citations and references by using APA format. Essentials of a good research report.